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Volume 12, Issue 6

June 2021

Central Rappahannock Heritage Center

Newsletter

A place that loses its history loses its soul

Message From The Chairman

"Play Ball!”

This will be a happy “Message” because there is a lot of good news to report.

The AD HOC reopening committee presented a plan to the Board for reopening the Center on 8 July. The initial opening will be partial- perhaps one day a week. The partial reopening is not because of Covid restrictions, but because of the necessity to train/retrain our volunteers. We plan to have an “Open House” sometime midsummer to celebrate our complete reopening. The Board approved the plan. Stay Tuned!

Probably not well known, even though the Center has been closed to the public, is that the physical facility has been maintained, collections processed, and on-line research continued. That occurred because two of our Board members worked above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the Center remained functional. They were Diane Ballman and John Reifenberg. The Board unanimously adopted a resolution expressing our thanks and appreciation to them. All CRHC members and history lovers are in debt to them.

The City of Fredericksburg has a box at the new FredNats baseball stadium. City Councilman William (Billy) Withers has invited the CRHC Board to a Sunday afternoon game on Father’s Day, 20 June. Billy and Alma will be our hosts. This will be a great way for our Board to re-connect after over a year of Zoom meetings.

Finally, on July 20, the Board will meet in person for the first time in 16 months and meet in person our newest Board members!

“Play Ball!”

Jack A. Apperson, Chairman

The Heritage Center

Welcome New Members!

Jeremy Utt

Teresa A. Kelley

Candace Dannaker

Heritage Center memberships support the important work done by The Center.

The Central Rappahannock Heritage Center is a non-profit, all-volunteer archive whose mission is to preserve historically valuable material of the region and make it available to the public for research.

Please join us as part of the Heritage Center's preservation team. As a member, you will be helping to preserve our priceless local history.

Click here to become a member today!

Membership

Thank you for your support,

The Heritage Center

MANY THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS

2021 HERITAGE CENTER SPONSORS

Barbara Barrett

Barbara H. Cecil

Dovetail Cultural Resource Group

Kitty Farley and Vic Ramoneda

Jim and Betsy Greene

Mary Katherine Greenlaw

Lucy and Wayne Harman

Mary Jane O'Neill

Hon. and Mrs. J.M.H. Willis

To become a Heritage Center Sponsor, please visit our website. If you have any questions, please contact The Heritage Center at (540) 373-3704.

Flags

June 14^th is Flag Day. How did this start? And what is the purpose of a flag? Flags are identity. In early times, flags were used to identify military units – the friends and the foes. Over time, flags became more descriptive; different colors, shapes and designs – strips, crosses, stars, the sun, moons, trees, outlines of a country or state borders, numbers, letters, the list is endless.

Capturing the flag became symbolic of victory. In battle, the standard bearer, was the target and particularly vulnerable.

We learn in school that George Washington asked Betsy Ross to create a flag for the Colonies. John Adams is said to have come up with the idea of thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen stars on a blue field representing the thirteen colonies. “The Star Spangled Banner,” written by Francis Scott Key was inspired by the U.S. flag, still flying over Fort McHenry in Baltimore after it was bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. Set to the music of an English drinking song, it was adopted as the National Anthem in 1931.

As the United States expanded, additional stars were added for each new state. The design changed from a circle to rows of stars. There have been 27 versions of the flag, also called Old Glory. In 1960, with the admission of Hawaii as the 50^th state, the latest version, with 50 stars, was adopted. To honor people who have died, the flag is flown at half-staff.

Butler Brayne Thornton Franklin (1899– 2003), preservationist, patriot and feminist of Fall Hill displaying two of her many flags.

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14^th as Flag Day on 30 May 1916.

To learn more about flags in our area, search the Center’s database and see how many different files we have that contain information about flags. Flags are artifacts, and therefore the Center does not collect flags, but its archives have many stories about them.

Beth Daly

Volunteer

Collections Update

Collections continue to be donated and processed by a core group of volunteers. Since our May newsletter we have received the following collections:

A scrapbook from the Downtown Retail Merchants, Inc. 1988-1996.

Six books on the following subjects: Carl Silver, Marye’s Heights, Alexander Spotswood, Historic Garden Week, and The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail.

King Family genealogy, 1844-1929. Fredericksburg, VA.

Fredericksburg Area Legal Secretaries Association records. 1962-1985

Additional programs, brochures, and music from Gaye Adegbalola.

Many photographs of the Hearn, Garrison, and Armstrong families.

A series of photographs taken in the early 20^th century depicting 304 Prince Edward St. It was of the C. W. Montgomery & Co., a coal yard and agricultural lime business. Included are photographs of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Fredericksburg Dial Building, 1952 and groundbreaking for the Youth For Christ building, 1964. Also, this collection contains many copies of letters to and from Charles M. Cowan, mayor of Fredericksburg from the mid-fifties to the early sixties.

If you are engaged in any spring cleaning of attics, basements or closets, consider a donation to the Center. Don't throw away paperwork that can be of value to future researchers!

Thank you for your interest in the Center's collections.

John Reifenberg

Collections Manager